Charlottesville Breaking News

Film fest director Jody Kielbasa reports attendance more than doubled last year to 23,750.

PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

A month before the theaters darken for the 24th Virginia Film
Festival, director Jody Kielbasa has revealed the special guests so
attendees can nab tickets as soon as they go on sale October 7.

And surely one of the sellouts will be legendary filmmaker
Oliver Stone, here for a 20th anniversary screening of
JFK, which stars Sissy Spacek. She's also on the festival
program– for a screening of Badlands, with husband Jack
Fisk, whom she met during its filming.

Another Stone connection is Hustler publisher Larry
Flynt, who will be here for a discussion after the Stone-produced
movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt, brought to you by the
Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.

Hot up-and-comer Mia Wasikowska, who starred in Tim Burton's
Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre, will be here
for her new film, Albert Nobbs, with festival stalwarts
Rodrigo Garcia and Julie Lynn.

Other highlights from the more than 100 films in this year's
November 3-6 festival are opening night preview of The
Descendants with George Clooney– "tremendous Oscar buzz" and
this year's Black Swan, according to Kielbasa; and new
movies from disturbing-cineastes David Cronenberg (A Dangerous
Method) and Lars von Trier (Melancholia).

That actress from The Hangover, Rachael Harris, will be
here for her new movie, Natural Selection....

Cindy Joskowiak shows Madison-based state delegate Ed Scott her brush with The Donald.

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After mixing for an hour with the crowd, Trump and son departed in dramatic fashion.

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Trump, Kluge, Trump

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The hottest ticket in Virginia last week was the grand opening
of Trump Vineyard Estates, with scores of public officials among
500 wine-happy citizens clamoring for a peek at the relaunched
vineyard– as well as a peek at the real estate mogul turned reality
television star known as The Donald.

Despite proximity of fewer than two hours south of Manhattan via
private helicopter, a close advisor asserts that the October 4
event marked the first time The Donald himself set foot on the
southeast-of-Charlottesville property, which Trump bought earlier
this year after banks seized the place from Patricia Kluge.

"Donald has become the wind beneath my wings," a smiling Kluge
told the crowd. "I feel that I gave birth to this place, and there
is nothing more pleasing than to know that it's in the hands of
someone I've known for 30 years."

"I'm going to put a lot of people to work," said Trump, who has
hired Kluge and her husband, William Moses.

"Patricia did a amazing job," Trump said as he began explaining
why he'll succeed where Kluge went bankrupt. "I don't have a
mortgage."

Public records show that Trump paid $8.55 million for 871 acres
including the pavilion, the Farm Shop on Blenheim Road, and a
former carriage museum– a complex that Trump vows to make a
thriving center for wines and weddings.

Young people should not get sick and die. Most of us do
eventually, but how sad it is to learn in your 20s that you have a
dangerous cancer and your chances of survival are 50/50. How
crueler still if the news is delivered by a doctor who seems almost
deliberately sadistic. Start with those odds. They may indeed be
accurate, but would it kill the son of a bitch to make them
60/40?

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a writer for public radio in
Seattle, which makes him almost a poster boy for someone who should
grow old and wise. He has a nagging back pain. The oncologist says
it is a rare form of cancer of the spine. 50/50 was
written by Will Reiser, who himself was diagnosed with a spinal
tumor. Seth Rogen, who plays Adam's best friend, Kyle, is a close
friend of Reiser in real life, and the movie is based on what
happened in their friendship after the diagnosis.

After surgery and treatment, Reiser is currently in the sixth
year of remission, and cheerfully observes, "Remission apparently
lasts forever ... or until you die." In an interview by Jen Chaney
with the two of them in The Washington Post, they joke
endlessly, which is perhaps inevitable between a comedy writer and
a comic actor, and although 50/50 is structured with the
efficiency of a sitcom, there's an undercurrent of truth and real
feeling.
Full review. ...

Approaching the second anniversary of their daughter's
disappearance, the parents of murdered student Morgan Dana
Harrington are unveiling a new campaign aiming to raise awareness
about the vulnerability of young women to predators and to offer
support to other victims' families.

Dubbed Helpsavethenextgirl.com, the
multi-media campaign includes not only that website but also
a Facebook page, and it launches with a series of bold online
ads placed on media websites from Blacksburg to Northern Virginia
aimed at sparking new leads in a case that appears to be running
cold.

"Spit out Morgan Dana Harrington's killer," says one of the
animated ads, featuring an airline "barf bag" bearing the composite
image of a bearded black man linked by DNA to a 2005 rape in
Fairfax and to Morgan's case.

Another features a photo of Morgan with the stark words: "20
years old. 5'5" tall. 6 feet under." And a third ad features images
of a smiling Morgan followed by the grim composite sketch. "She was
the girl next door," it reads. "Is this the guy next door?"

The ads are intended to be harsh, says Morgan's mother, Gil
Harrington.

"Something ugly happened here, and I'm not going to sugar-coat
it for him," she says, referring to the man she believes is
responsible for killing her daughter. "From the beginning, I've
tried to use clear...

Clerk of court candidate Pam Melampy, right, is joined by independents for City Council Scott Bandy, left, and Andrew Williams when she announces her own independent bid after her run as a Democrat didn't go so well.

"We're not happy she's doing that," says Democratic co-chair Jim
Nix. "She signed a document saying she would support the Democratic
nominee."

Melampy contends that her over 20 years of experience in the
court system make her the best choice for the $112K-a-year job, and
if elected, she promises she'll donate 10 percent of her salary to
the local Boys and Girls Club, SPCA, and Hospice House of the
Piedmont.

"I want to take a pay cut," says Melampy. "You don't hear many
people saying that."

Independent City Council candidates Scott Bandy and Andrew
Williams joined Melampy as she entered the November 8 race for the
second time.

Her first
time as one of three Democratic candidates in the August 20
primary running against incumbent Paul Garrett and public defender
Llezelle Dugger left Melampy feeling duped, she says. The
Democratic Committee initially was "gung ho" about her candidacy
until she had signed a check for $250 to the party and the
declaration that she would only support the Democratic nominees,
according to Melampy.

The support she thought she had among Dems and local lawyers
evaporated when...